THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST

August 8, 2010

St. Augustine Anglican Church

“The King in his beauty.”

The Rev. Gerald Parks +

          There aren’t many today who would give much credence to the story of the Transfiguration of Christ.  It is too fanciful a tale to be real, they say, undoubtedly made up by those same apostles who supposedly witnessed it.  So, they deny and condemn our Lord’s Transfiguration, without ever once asking themselves why: Why would Peter, James and John, the simplest and most unworldly of men make up such a “tall tale”? Why would they tell a story whose meaning would have been impossible for them to comprehend?  The ultimate meaning of the Transfiguration of Christ can only be understood in the light of our Lord’s final obedience of the Cross, and His triumphant glory in the Resurrection and Ascension.  The Apostles could not have known any of that at the time, because none of it had happened yet.  Therefore, to charge them with lying about it is ludicrous: they saw what they saw, and they reported what they saw, as they understood it.

          It appears that being in the physical presence of God – known theologically as a “theophany” – can have a striking effect on human flesh, altering its appearance at least temporarily to an extent that is quite disturbing to those who see it.  When Moses came down from the Mount after talking with God and receiving the Ten Commandments, the Old Testament reports that “…Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone…So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” (Exodus 34: 29-30, RKJV)

          In a previous encounter with God – that of the “Burning Bush” – Moses asks God directly “…Please, show me your glory.” (Exodus 33: 18, RKJV), to which God replies, “…I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.  But, He said, You cannot see my face ; for no man shall see me, and live.” (Exodus 33: 19-20, RKJV)

          God appears to those He chooses, and always with a purpose, which is why theophanies are so rare.  In today’s Gospel of the Transfiguration of Christ (Luke 9: 28-36), God’s purpose seems clear: to honor the Son and to send Moses and Elias, who represent the Law and the Prophets, to strengthen our Lord’s resolve to fulfill the promises made through them for the redemption of mankind.  Though there are similarities, this should not be seen as the same thing as God speaking to Moses.  It clearly is not, for in this case the Father is speaking to the Son of things known only to them.  While Jesus is the Son of God, He is also the Son of man as Moses was, and His human appearance is changed (or Transfigured) as Moses’ also was: “And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.” (Luke 9: 29)

          In today’s Collect, we pray “that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may be permitted to behold the King in his beauty.”  That is a beautiful way of describing the Transfigured Lord, to bring Him in closer and clearer to us.  The German theologian Karl Barth referred often to God as “the eternal other,” again putting into words that which must remain to us an impenetrable mystery.  But the two descriptions, so very different, point us to the same conclusion: we may know God only in ways that we have been permitted to see, but beyond that we are not allowed to go.  As God said to Moses, “You cannot see my face; for no man shall see me, and live.”

          This idea that God is beautifully and eternally “other” is, of course, the very reason for the existence of the continuing Anglican movement: it is all we have left to us of a faith and worship tradition that stretches all the way back to the remote beginnings of Christianity, where it was received from the very hands of the Apostles of Jesus.  During the early part of the twentieth century, cracks began to appear in the ways men viewed God.  Theologians, who had been reticent before in questioning things like the Transfiguration, the Virgin birth and even, in some cases, the very existence of God, now expressed their true feelings and opinions openly, and taught them in seminaries.  It took awhile, but eventually the infection they spewed spread, first to individual churches and then to entire denominations.  We all went through it, and what we witnessed “first hand” isn’t over.  The process goes on today, all due to a fundamental fallacy: men thought they could see the “face of God” in a mirror, and found that their God was very familiar; their God was only a man “like unto themselves.”  That is the very antithesis of faith in the “eternal other,” and mocks “the King in His beauty” as nothing but a monstrous fraud.

          If we hope one day to see God “face to face,” to experience “the eternal other” in His beautiful holiness, we must reach beyond the limitations placed on us by the cynical theories of misguided and foolish men.  We must open our hearts and minds to the Transfigured and Risen Christ, and prepare our souls for His radiant and glorious light, if we are to experience eternal life in His presence.  The world today is lost in a cloud of ignorance and unbelief, blinded by the fog of self-indulgence and unfettered pride; and God, too, seems far away and shrouded in a mist of human indifference.  But out of this cloud, there comes a voice today, as it did on the Mount of Transfiguration, so long ago, “This is my beloved Son: hear Him.” (Luke 9: 35)

          It was the voice of God the Apostles heard out of the cloud on the Mount, and it is the same voice of God that calls to us now.  We cannot find God by gazing in a mirror at our own reflection; we cannot wish our way into His presence, and we cannot ever hope to see “the King in his beauty,” unless we first believe that He is the redeeming and transfigured Lord we seek.  He is present in all His beauty in the Holy Sacrament of the altar, and He offers Himself to us now.  But it is we who must humbly accept Him as He truly is: lowly and meek, for sure; gentle and loving, also; but glowing with the radiance of our Savior and King.  “This is my beloved Son: hear Him.”